Order of pedals on the foot board?

For maximum sound, in what order should I arrange the pedals? I have a Wa, compressor, blues driver, echo, and reverb that goes into the amp. I also have a loop send and return in my amp. Would any of the pedals work better in the loop?

D

Hi shredderman,

Personally, I would chain them like this:

blues driver, compressor, wa, echo then run the reverb through the effects loop.

I not sure about the compressor position because I don't usually use one. I've found when I run effects through the amp's loop that there is a slight drop in sound quality, so I usually skip the loop all together. I'm thinking that the reverb in the loop would be OK, though.

Hope this helps!

Neal's approach is very good. What I'd add is playing around with the order of overdrive, compressor, wah. That order could change things up tonally. There's no "correct" way, just a general rule that a lot of guitar players follow. In the end, it's really what sounds good to you.

I put them in order of things that affect the guitar`s signal, things that add to it, and things that use time.

So (for me) Wah comes first. It`s basically a tone control. Overdrive adds to the signal, so it`s next. Reverb, Delay, etc, are all time-based effects so they come last.

But there is no `right`way as has been mentioned. I`m going to try the Wah after OD chain. Neal might be on to something. :)

I like Wah after Od because it sounds more like Hendrix.

The reverb and the delay placement would probably depend on how dirty your sound is going to be. Placing reverb and delay into the amp's input when it's an overdriven sound will sound like mud. Those two effects better serve you in the effects loop. The Compressor could be the first in the chain or the last thing that goes into your amp. This way it has an effect on the whole signal and not any one effect in the middle of the effects order. The wah for me comes before all else much like hendrix used to do. Not that it sounds like hendrix but it does shape your sound better - for me anyway.

Here's a vid of me using a FJA Modded Cry Baby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd5tV0AhkGI


All the best,
Joe Pinnavaia
http://www.joepinnavaia
http://www.guitarlessonsbuffalony.com

No order is right, in my opinion. However, I think that compressor placement (and even Wah for that matter) make a difference in the chain. Not that there is a right way. Since I found Wah's to have some level of compression-like qualities, I felt it was better after the OD. If it was before, I felt the tone was rather anemic since the OD was not getting fed the full bandwidth of signal. My old set up, I had the Wah on full time, pedal flat position (no, not the Schenker-kick back position...) because it tightened up the overdrive from the Boss Turbo OD I used. Even though it brightened the sound, with a little extra leaning on the Bass frequencies on the Amp tone, it had a really good sound.

So, no theory but how my stuff just sounded better. That also matters, no one set of equipment is the same so no signal path is really right or wrong.